


boy with the thorn in his side

by thisorient



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Character Study, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-31 23:21:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21280478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisorient/pseuds/thisorient
Summary: You are Billy.You were born William, but you’re called Billy.You were born on a coast where waves kiss the shore over and over - day in, day out, always. They kissed it during the morning when you’d stare out of a window in the backseat of a car, your eyes just as blue as the water. They kissed it in the evening, your feet in the sand, your mother holding your hand, watching the sun set all oranges and pinks.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 12
Kudos: 46





	boy with the thorn in his side

**Author's Note:**

> a weird character study sort of thing. i've never written anything like this before. i just watched stranger things in full, and i think that billy is quite a complicated person and the layers to him are tangled and quite honestly fascinating. i wanted to explore what could've driven him to be such a dick. i don't forget his flaws. i just want to understand them. essentially an imagining of billy's character, with harringrove sprinkled in. i'm hoping it all makes sense to someone besides me.
> 
> (no season three nonsense. fanon over canon.)
> 
> title is from the smiths' song.

You are Billy.

You were born William, but you’re called Billy.

You were born on a coast where waves kiss the shore over and over - day in, day out, always. They kissed it during the morning when you’d stare out of a window in the backseat of a car, your eyes just as blue as the water. They kissed it in the evening, your feet in the sand, your mother holding your hand, watching the sun set all oranges and pinks.

Always, they met the shore. An everlasting bond.

(And the sound was one of your favorite songs.)

The hand that held yours on that beach, had let go eventually. Yet, the waves never left.

Though, someday, you had to leave them.

-

You cut your knuckles up on your second day in Hawkins. He was crowding your space that day, your dad, forcing you against a wall. You feel so _small_. It’s something about you not lending a hand to unpack the rest of the house. Something about you being a waste, something about you being selfish.

Things you’d heard from him before.

A fist that’s connected with your cheek before. So many times before.

You take off in your car, the prized possession you’d followed your dad and step-mother all the way to Hawkins in. There’s a junkyard on the side of the road a few miles away. Nobody is there, it’s quiet enough, so you pull over and the hood of a totaled car becomes the victim of your own fists. 

You pound on the hunk of metal until your skin breaks. The pain soars through, and it hurts so _good_, and you don’t even feel the tears that dripped onto your bloodied hands in the midst of a breakdown.

-

“He’s the king,” they said, at the first party you went to in this town. _“King Steve,”_ they called him. It’s intriguing, that title, and you want to see the face behind the name.

Man behind the legend.

His eyes are behind sunglasses, you see that when Tommy points out the king to you. The moment you see his ridiculously gorgeous hair and the pout of his lips across the room, you feel sick with want.

Steve’s arm is slung around a pretty girl, and when he takes off his glasses, bush baby eyes looking into yours - you realize you want to be her.

It makes you want to throw up.

It makes you wanna do something stupid like take him to a different room and kiss the hell out of him.

But mostly, it makes you want to throw up.

And you don’t know how to deal with Steve. You won’t know how for a long time.

-

You have a photo of Robert Plant in your room, hidden behind a bigger photo of a nameless, bikini-clad woman tacked up on your wall. You only look at that photo when your dad isn’t home, when you’re _absolutely sure_ he’s gone to work.

The poster of the woman gets peeled down to reveal the one you truly want to see. A lamp illuminates your bedroom as you study the long, lean lines of his body. The hips of a golden god that so many women wanted to grip. Hips you wanted to grip, too - the same way you want to grip the stupid hair of a pretty boy you fought days ago, pull his head back to get a taste of his throat. Bare skin that’s meant to be exposed to you.

It wouldn’t be so bad, would it? Then your father’s words come back to haunt you - _“like some kind of faggot.”_

The poster of your favorite singer stays hidden. So do your feelings for the pretty boy with the kissable jaw.

-

So you think that your step-sister is a bitch, which isn't true. She’s a 13 year-old girl, with the attitude that comes with it. She’s fiery, and she’s smart, and you have to spend most of your time watching her.

But the thing is that it’s not something you asked for. This is something that was beaten into you. This was something that was _bled_ into you.

Your father cares more about her, somehow. You wonder if he sees her as property, the way he saw your mother as property, the way he sees all women as property. Something to be handled as such, to be ordered around.

(Speak when you’re spoken to. Maybe you’re property too.)

There’s a threat of a beating of a fucking lifetime if you don’t find your sister now. She doesn’t need a babysitter, but Neil’s words are your laws, and you want to keep your face clean this week.

You drive thirty miles over the speed limit to the sound of your current favorite tape, awaiting the street where the arcade is. _That’s where she usually is_, you think, _the shithead._

You weren’t expecting to see Steve at the entrance.

And you _really_ weren’t expecting to see how softly he’s looking at you tonight.

Weeks ago, you had one another’s blood on each other.

Right now, he’s looking at you like you’re the one that’s fragile, despite everything you’d done to him.

He tells you where your sister is.

“She’s fine, she’s just with the kids.”

-

It’s summer now, and the heat is ungodly, and you kind of fucking love it. It reminds you of California. The smell of your sunscreen and the feel of the sun can almost take you back there.

_Almost_.

You’ve been picking up shifts at the community pool as a lifeguard, the change lines up the mason jar under your bed that’s thoughtfully labelled _“getting the fuck out of here”_ in bold, black marker.

Lately, the pretty boy has been coming by in the afternoons. The gang of kids follows as usual, your sister in the mix, but you don’t acknowledge her much.

You aren’t really paying attention, truthfully. A certain expanse of skin is all you can focus on.

You can barely do your job properly when he shows up.

It almost seems worth it when he starts to smile at you more.

It definitely seems worth it when he begins saying _“Hey, Hargove”_ every visit.

-

Your sister told.

She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. Dad’s words - _“tell anyone about this, and you don’t even want to know what will happen.”_

You’re nursing a black eye in the parking lot of a closed gas station. It’s late. It’s stupidly late. And it’s pouring the rain, because of course it’s raining in the middle of this mess. Yet a car pulls up beside you, and you immediately recognize it.

Steve.

He gets out and taps on your window. You feel so fucking small again. You don’t want him to see you like this. But the rain is pounding down, and the least you could do is reach over to the passenger side and unlock the door.

He rounds your car and hops in. He explains that Max had called, wanted him to go looking for you.

“Well, here I am, Harrington. Happy you found me?”

He inches closer to you, takes the ice pack off your eye, leans in to look closer.

(You’re shaking. Or he’s shaking. You can’t tell. Perhaps you’re both shaking.)

You can feel his breathing dancing across your cheek when he’s this close. You can feel fingertips brush your cheekbone, up near the bruising.

“Billy… _how_?”

That night is the night Steve Harrington understood you, understood the way that you operate. The way you were forced to operate.

And he says he understands.

And he holds you when you break, when you start crying in front of somebody for the first time since your dad started putting his hands on you.

-

You're 18, and it's the end of summer. You're 18, and there's nothing that legally tethers you to your father anymore. Sure, you live in his house, but when you're able to leave - you'll leave.

So you're 18, and the money from your summer job filled up the mason jar underneath your bed, and to be honest it still isn't enough to leave. The pool is closing in a week, and there's no way in hell you can get hired anywhere else with your reputation.

Except... there's a garage across town, and you know way too much about cars, and they're short staffed so they hire you on the spot. It isn't much, but it's something, and it pays for your gas and you save up all the rest.

(It accumulates in a savings account this time. You're no longer scared of your dad finding out your escape plan.) 

On your off days, your life is made up of one Steve Harrington. You're both out of school now, you both work, and he's usually with his gaggle of children but he makes time for you. It's strangely pleasant. It's as if you were never destined enemies. Maybe you were destined to be something more. 

The pretty boy is a friend to you now. A really good friend. It started all those weeks ago when he tapped on your car window, when he saw you at the lowest of lows. And he didn't judge you, didn't see you as weak.

(Because you're not weak. In fact, you're really fucking strong.)

There's something about the way he smiles at you now, it makes your bones feel like jelly. You don't feel like throwing up anymore when you think about kissing him. You feel _warmth_ now, as you're lying side by side in his backyard tonight, trading secrets like little kids. 

You wonder if he's ever thought about kissing you, too. 

-

It's November, it's fucking freezing, and Steve doesn't call you _Hargrove_ anymore. He calls you _Billy_ when he places his hand over your free one as you're driving one evening.

It comes naturally, the way he touches you now. It's something he's eased into, like you were made of glass and so, so fragile. The touches started out as fleeting - one second too long for a hand on your shoulder, the time he brushed your hair out of your eyes when he stopped by the garage one day.

Nowadays, he slots in next to you anywhere you're sitting, against your side completely. Nowadays, he takes your hands when you're talking at times, like it's the most casual thing.

When you sleep over, when it's shitty at home, he makes a spot in his bed for you and somehow, some way, ends up on your side over the course of the night.

(He doesn't know that it means the world to you. To be touched like this, to be covered up. To feel _held._) 

You still wonder if he thinks about kissing you. The thought doesn't seem so farfetched as your friendship progresses.

The day Steve kisses you for the first time happens to be today, the same day his hand was over yours on the gear shift and your heartbeat accelerated as scheduled. 

The day Steve kisses you for the first time, you weren't expecting it. The sweetest surprise, a surprise you aren't used to. 

You're dropping him off at his house, and it's so fucking cold, and his cheeks are flushed, and he's beautiful. Nose red, a dusting of pink in his otherwise pale complexion. 

"Later, Harrington," you say, the line you usually use when you part ways.

Steve doesn't hop out though, he doesn't get out and go up to his front door, parting with "Later, Billy."

Instead, he studies your face.

And his soft lips touch yours for the first time. And you feel like you might die, _I'm going to die_, you think, as you keep kissing him.

It's as if every bit of air in your lungs is knocked out of you. 

Nobody has ever kissed you like this before.

It feels like everything. 

It feels like the beginning of something, the end of a gravelly, winding road.

Salvation. 

**Author's Note:**

> mayhaps i snuck in a teeny tiny midsommar reference.
> 
> "do you feel held by him?" yes the fuck he does in this fic
> 
> also want to mention that max had let steve in on some stuff about their home life and steve started putting together the pieces over time. that's why he starts being gentle towards billy rather than "he rocked my shit, we boutta fight again" because he gets why billy was Like That.


End file.
